Longbottom the Lophotrophob
by g.tripp
Summary: Neville, greenthumbed as he is, has another power he doesn't know about. Longtime bullied by some and pitied by others, a little loathing has mixed in with his usual worried nature... His thoughts get darker now. How will this new power affect him?
1. A Gift

i don't own any of these characters.

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Longbottom the Lophotrophob  
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The Shape of Snails

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When Neville entered the greenhouse, Professor Sprout greeted him with a warm smile. However, her face quickly adopted a worried expression. "Longbottom," she said, "I need your help here with the sneezewort!" She gestured towards the other students, the majority of which were having sneezing fits. The rest looked worried and anxious not to get in touch with the powdered leaves lying on their tables.

Hermione sneezed and turned around, looking embarrassed.

Neville rolled his eyes. As the "brightest witch in her year" she should have known not to get close to a magical plant she didn't know ! He knew that he was better at handling the plants but he needed her for his potions homeworks, so he kept his mouth shut.

"Okay…" His voice trailed off as he was looking for someone who wasn't busy blowing their noses.

Ron was just picking his nose when he noticed someone giving him orders. To his surprise it was Neville Longbottom, telling him to fetch some snail slime.

"Snail slime ? Ick ! What are we going to use that for ?"

"Don't worry, Weasley, I can see that you don't need it", Neville said softly.

"Beg you pardon ?", Ron said. He could hardly believe his ears. Had Neville just been sarcastic ? The tone reminded him of someone he knew well… Only he couldn't put his finger on it right now. Confused he walked away.

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Ron the brave snailconquerer came back with a bucket full of wriggling snails. Amazingly it only took him half an hour to collect them. Henceforward he was know as "Ron the Snailconquerer", or such would become the entry in his diary this night.. For the other students this was just a lousy day: a boring Herbology lesson that led to heavy sneezing fits that could only be stopped by the disgusting procedure of putting snail slime under their noses.

Neville passed the bucket around and told them to take a snail each. Noone dared to protest. Resigning to their fates they complied.

Neville and Professor Sprout wandered around in class, supervising the procedure. Neville wasn't in a good mood today: he had run into Snape who had been randomly giving out detentions in the great hall, his grandma had sent him a howler and on top of it all, Trevor had gone missing again. He had last seen him sitting in the greenhouse, near the Devilssnare. He continued pondering about his miserable life, when he saw Seamus Finnigan trying to apply a snail to Hermione's backside.

"Seamus STOP !", Neville intervened, taking the little snail out of his hands. "How would you like to be put on someone's ass?"

Hermione shot him a dirty look, obviously feeling offended by his last words.

But Neville wasn't in the mood for this kind of game, he wouldn't apologize to the know-it-all for saving her, no matter how helpful she could be. He just rolled his eyes and turned around, bumping into Professor Sprout.

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"Thank you Mr. Longbottom, twenty points to Gryffindor for -," the Professor was starting to say when she noticed the defiant look in his eyes. "Neville, what's the matter ?"

"Nothing, Professor," he mumbled. He looked down at himself and noticed that he has almost squashed the little snail in his right hand. It was wrigging through his fingers, trying desperately to get away from him.

"Oh sorry !", he said, horrified by his throughtless actions. He'd never willingly hurt an animal, he really shouldn't let his anger control him. Carefully he placed the sail on the brim of the snail-bucket. "Off you go. Greet your family." When he looked up again, the whole class was staring at him, mouths agape.

"What's wrong ?"

"Neville, you're a Lophotrophob," Hermione exclaimed.

"A what?", Ron asked, "Do you have a word for everything? He was only making weird noises!"

"If you would spend more time in the library actually studying rather than picking your nose, you'd know that there are some wizards – or witches – who are able to communicate with snails. They are called Lophotrophobs."

Now the class were staring at Hermione. Neville felt left out of this discussion, even though it was about him, or something that he supposedly did. He had… Had he really talked to the snail in a lanugage he didn't even know to exist ? – Would his grandmother approve?

Professor Sprount, who had been watching silently, interrupted Hermione before she could continue. "It's a rare gift, boy. Use it wisely," she said solemly. She was silent for a minute. "Class dismissed," she now adressed the whole class, and walked away with a bouncing stride.

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He'd been sitting on a rock near the greenhouse for some minutes, thinking about his day so far. It had started out bad, but he didn't know what to make of the newest revelation. He was something like… a snail-tongue ? It seemed ridiculous to him. Harry could talk in an animal language, he was a Parselmouth, which meant that he could talk to snakes and understand them too, and Neville had always considered this to be helpful and 'cool'. He'd never given much heed to the supposed connection to the Dark Arts. But of course snakes were far more prestigious than snails.

He couldn't help it: he was more irritated than happy about this new-found gift of his. He had to attend Snape's detention in a short while, and knowing Snape to read the students' minds, he tried to push his thoughts aside. Shaking his head he went back on the way, passing the greenhouse.

There were still two students hanging around in front of the closed doors. Ron and Hermione were talking avidly but stopped when they saw Neville approaching. Neville stopped too, waiting for them to start talking.

"Hi," Hermione said insecurely, "Do you… er… Would you tell us what Sprout said to you ?" "Of course," she added, seeing the surprised expression on his face and probably mistaking it for something else, "you don't have too…"

Neville sneered at her. This insecure behaviour displayed by the best witch in their year lifted his spirits a bit. But what did she want to know ? Professor Sprout had only said a few words to him, right in front of everyone else… Then it hit him – Sprout was a Lothotrophob too ! She'd spoken to him in snail language ! Perhaps this day would turn out to be good after all.

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so... how did you like it ? it started as a joke, the whole parselmouth vs. lophotrophob thing , but a story about neville that shows him with a complicated inner life seemed interesting to write. ("lophotrophob" does, by the way, owe something to a latin name for snails/slugs, or one snail/slug, but i can't find my own source anymore)


	2. A Book

Snape was eyeing Neville in disgust, but also with curiosity. He had made it his hobby to first guess at the students thoughts before he used legilimency. Why was this squib being so cheerful ? After all, students were usually not happy to attend his detention classes, which was precisely why he made them come. After some minutes he became too bored with his speculations – he couldn't really think of something interesting that would make Neville happy, for alle he knew the boy probably knew the whereabouts of his toad for once - and decided that the guessing time was now over.

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After running to Snape's office, leaving behind his fellow Gryffindors without an answer, Neville had started to sort the potion ingredients in the storage aphabetically. Although determinded not to think about what happened in herbology, Neville's mind frequently wandered to his newfound ability due to the tedious assignment the potions professor had given him. Talking to snakes could sometimes be practical, both in the magical world and the muggle world, if only because you could ask the snake not to bite you. Snakes had a keen mind and an inscrutable personality, but if you were subtle, you could gather information from it ('It ?', Neville asked himself, 'Do you still say "it" if you can talk to it ?') and ask it for help. No, he corrected himself, asking for help probably wouldn't work, you'd have to make a deal. Snails on the other hand… He'd never read anything about the psychology of snails. He reckoned that snails could be asked for help if they even understood abstraction, if they had a word for "help". The snail he had spoken to had not answered, in fact, the only time he had heard snail-tongue it had come from another human. "Use it wisely", Professor Sprout had said. How could he use this gift, wisely or not ? Strangely, Neville hadn't thought about trying to talk to a snail after the incident, he'd been to overwhelmed and… defensive. Yes, looking back he saw how all he'd wanted was to get away from his inquisitorial schoolmates.

Suddenly he realized that Snape was standing behind him. Hell, what Snape want, had he said anything ? Neville had been so lost in thought he'd forgotten everything else. Feeling uncomfortable, he turned around. He had already used the legilimency spell against him, Neville was quite sure, because he could see the satisfaction in Snape's face.

"So Longbottom, rumor has it you're a slimespitter" Snape said with a drawl. "Is it true?"

"Yes, Sir."

Neville knew there was no use in lying. Snape probably knew a rude word for everything. He tried to keep himself calm and not to seem too much offended. It would only make things worse for him and another detention was the last thing he wanted to risk.

Snape watched him closely. Neville's face was blank, but his eyes betrayed him. They were wild and furious like Snape had never seen them before. What had happened to the shy little boy he'd enjoyed to intimidate for years ? Anyway, Neville had almost finished his task and he needed to occupy the incompetent little lophotrophob with something.

"Finished ? All in proper alphabetical order…? I knew even you could manage that. Now that you know where to find everything you might as well start with your work. Sort them according to this list." He handed Neville a handwritten list.

Neville eyed the piece of paper in disbelief. 'Start with your work' ? He'd thought he was almost finished ! Almost all of the words were completely illegible. Severus Snape didn't have a neat handwriting at all. However, Neville was sure that he didn't put much effort in his penmanship, at least not when it came to detention assignments. He sighed. This would take him until midnight and he would need to ask Snape for clarification every few minutes and he was tired and he needed to think about the elapsed day… No ! He would not fall into his old pattern of feeling mildly sorry for himself and resigning to his fate !

Surely Snape knew something about Lophotrophobs, had at least heard about them before. His subject was potions but it was well known that he wanted to become Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and maybe the snail-tongue did have a dark quality.. Also, Neville had never known his teacher to be ignorant of something.

"Professor," he said loudly, "do you know anything about… slimespitters, as you call us ?"

Now it was Snape's turn to widen his eyes in disbelief. What had the little git asked him ? It had sounded like a dare. And he'd used the degrading term, his voice dripping with sarcasm… He got up from the desk where he'd been busy correcting papers and turned around slowly, rearranging his face into a blank mask.

"Do I know anything about them ? I do", he said darkly, giving Neville a long, cold stare with his dark eyes. He was curious to see if Neville would leave it at that.

He wouldn't.

"And what can you tell me about us ?", he asked, choosing the words of a teacher testing his pupil but making his voice sound innocent of that fact.

There was a minute of silence when they stared into each others eyes.

Then Snape aswered slowly, "I do not have the time to tell. However, if you should be so pitiable as to know nothing about your own kind, you will find everything you need to know – and more – in this book." While he had talked, Snape had walked over to a bookshelf in a dimly lit corner of the room and pulled out a book with golden letters on it. He held out the book to Neville.

Neville breathed in deeply. Then he stepped forward to take the book from Snape's hands. 'The Shape Of Snails, By Tomas de Caracos', the cover read. He hadn't thought that Snape would ever lend a book of his personal property to a student, much less him, but that was what he was doing, wasn't it ? The professors voice interrupted his spectulations.

"You will give it back to me tomorrow at 6 o'clock, when you come to finish your detentions assignment. You can go now."

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Snape knew that Neville would never have dared to ask him for a book. Asking him about lophotrophobs had been daring, but it had not invaded his personal space. No student ever dared to invade his privacy, he saw to that. If he ever lent out a book – and he had done so before – it was not because he got weak but because he liked to picture the students eyeing it suspiciously, hardly daring to open the covers. They were certainly too scared of him to damage his property. However, he would never give away something to a student that disgusted him. Neville Longbottom had disgusted (and annoyed) him in the past, more so than any other student except Harry Potter, but today he had showed… nerve. Snape had become a little curious, he wanted to know what had induced that change in the boy, and that had inspired him to give him the book.

Too bad that all he knew about slimespitters was where to find the book to look them up.


End file.
